


home is where the—

by ninzied



Category: Daredevil (TV), The Punisher (TV 2017)
Genre: Angst and Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Minor Character Death
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-07-17
Updated: 2019-07-17
Packaged: 2020-06-30 10:19:10
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,179
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19851112
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ninzied/pseuds/ninzied
Summary: based on the prompt: kastle + vermont.





	home is where the—

She can't remember the last time she stepped foot on this sad patch of grass off of Route 296.

(She can. She does. _That's what you do, Karen_.)

Matt had tried to come with her. But she still hasn't told him the truth – she's been meaning to, but. The right time has never come up, and she knows that it's just an excuse, but if there was ever a _wrong_ time to tell him, now would certainly qualify.

_Hey, Matt. You asked me, once, why I came to New York. My brother's dead because of me, and my dad, who wanted nothing to do with me after, is about to be buried right next to him._

And because she'd refused Matt's company, she couldn't very well let Foggy come either. As much as she'd secretly wanted to cave when he kept on insisting in clumsy but no less heartfelt terms, his baseline level of awkwardness made ten-fold in the face of something like grief.

Something like it, anyway.

"We weren't really close," Karen had insisted, and the truth hidden there cut deeper than it usually did. But like with most types of pain, she'd long since learned to smile as she swallowed it down.

"Oh, honey, I've been there," even Marci had thought to chime in, "but trust me when I say you'll want someone with you, wherever your relationship with your father left off when he died."

Heart attack, the voice had said on the phone. She hadn't recognized the person speaking; a Doctor So-and-So – Leo something, maybe – from Fagan Corners General, he said, and she'd barely been able to hear the rest. Karen had wondered, in her daze, how they'd even known to call her; she'd been dead to the town the moment she left it all those years ago.

For all the diner food that had sustained him over the years, Paxton Page's health had always seemed stubbornly resistant, and maybe this was just another in a long line of _fuck you_ 's to Karen for thinking that she still knew him a little.

 _We'll pick you up at eight_ , Foggy had texted her the night before. _Go ahead and try to argue your way out of this one._

Then, another second later:

_And don't worry, we told Matt the funeral isn't until the day after. So, he'll probably catch up just in time for the service to be over._

Karen leaves at six thirty that morning. She'd anticipated Foggy attempting to pull something like this, and so had been careful not to give him the right start time either.

She borrows Ellison's car. He at least knows when to back down, and besides that running the _Bulletin_ doesn't afford him much time off. (She's also quick to remind him that he was the one who fired her; letting her take his car and not coming with her is really the least he could do.)

She drives like she's on autopilot, until the half-crooked WELCOME TO FAGAN CORNERS, VT sign comes into view. The population count probably hasn't been updated since the 80's, but it feels oddly fitting now. Balanced. It takes one to die for another to return.

The local cemetery is one of the first turns, right after Route 296 dumps its cars into the town like run-off into a landfill. Welcome to Fagan Corners, indeed. It's normally impossible to miss, but Karen has to make a last-minute swerve anyway, because her vision has started to blur and swirl, like a watercolor dabbed with too heavy a brush.

She forces her breathing to even before stepping out of the car. There's a long line of them down the street where she's parked; Karen half-wonders if there's more than one service today, until memory walks her hand-in-hand to Kevin's gravestone and she sees the crowd that's gathered there.

She stands at the very edge, her black blending in with everyone else's, and she uses the excuse of an overcast sky to tuck her blonde hair under the hood of her coat.

She'd brought sunglasses too, as if the weather here might have been any less dismal or drizzly than how she's always remembered it. But they would only attract more attention, so they stay firmly clenched in her hand as she gazes down at the brown-choked edges of grass and tries not to think about who else might be there.

The most their family had ever been known for in this town was loss. First her mother, then Kevin in that accident nobody could stop talking about for days – weeks – what felt like forever, afterward. Karen doesn't want to know what they must say about her: the girl heartless enough to leave a grieving father behind.

( _I don't want you here, Karen_.)

She doesn't have a clear view of the casket from here. She thinks it's because she doesn't want to. She thinks it's because maybe she can't.

There are people she can't bear to see. Chief Cohen is here – must be, somewhere, and she already knows she can never look him in the eye again. And then there are the people at the front of the crowd, those closest to the casket, closest to—

Karen wants to be sick, standing here dwelling on the family she's been replaced with, and not what losing her father might mean to her instead, all those shadowy places where grief and rage and freedom cross paths, and she can't do this. She can't.

She can't.

She can't.

She turns.

And runs right into Frank Castle.

She's absolutely sure, for a moment, that she's just seeing things. There's no plausible explanation for him being there. No way he would've known to come, no reason she can think of that he'd have even wanted to, and yet—

"Frank?" Her voice cracks, falling apart at the end, and she can't help but think, _So this is what hope can do to a person_.

"Karen," he says, low and rough and one hundred percent Frank, and no, she couldn't dream up something this real if she tried.

She takes an unsteady step forward.

Maybe she stumbles. Maybe he's only trying to catch her. Either way, his arms are suddenly encircling her body, pulling her against him as the tears she'd been fighting finally break free.

She can count on one hand the number of times he has willingly touched her first. The shock of it now isn't any less dulled by the reason why she's here, shaky and sobbing into his shoulder while he makes soft shushing noises and sways their bodies together.

It only makes her cry harder.

"Hey. Hey. C'mere." Frank's wrapping his hand around the back of her neck, gently squeezing there, and it makes her feel fragile and strong all at once. Like she's worth being soft with, like this pain that she's feeling isn't somehow all her own damn fault.

Her hood has slipped back from her face, and his cheek is resting against the bare skin of her temple when he speaks again. Calm and unwavering, just like every other time he's been there to look out for her.

"You want to stay?"

She's making a scene, and that's the last thing she'd meant to do here.

Karen shakes her head.

He adjusts his grip around her shoulders, leading her back toward the row of parked cars. The ground is damp with morning dew, and her heels sink into the dirt more than once, making her stumble and nearly take him down with her.

"Sorry," she says, but Frank only moves his hand to her waist, arm pressing into the small of her back. It's a simple but comforting gesture, and such a departure from the last time they'd seen one another ( _I don't want to, I don't want to_ , and God when will people stop saying that to her?).

She wants to be angry with him. It would be the easier thing to do. But he's here now, and that means something to her.

She thinks it might mean something to him too.

"How are you here?" Karen asks him, after a moment of quiet. They've reached the sidewalk and kept on going, taking their time in slow, measured steps. She's half-expected him to let go of her waist, so she shouldn't feel that dull ache in her chest when he does, but then he's reaching for her hand instead.

She loses her breath for a moment.

When she can, she says, "Was it Foggy?"

"Was already on my way here when he called," Frank tells her, and doesn't elaborate any further than that.

Karen shakes her head, trying to understand what this is all supposed to mean. "So…"

Frank clears his throat and says, "Wasn't sure you'd want to see me again."

He says it in such a way to leave her with the distinct impression that if she hadn't turned and seen him there when she did, she might never have known he'd come at all.

"I wasn't either," she answers honestly, and he hangs his head with a nod. Her hand tightens around his. "But it means a lot to me that you're here, Frank."

It means everything, she wants to say, but she doesn't think he's ready for that either.

The farther they've gone from the burial site, the more she succumbs to a slow-numbing exhaustion, the kind that only grieving for something can bring, and that – that feels wrong to her too, somehow. That she could make a choice to feel nothing at all.

She pauses, half-turned back toward the direction they'd came, and Frank squeezes her hand to let her know that he's right there with her, wherever she decides to go next.

Karen takes a step forward, and has to brace herself for a second, like she's reached the top of a very steep hill, and too-sudden a movement might send her careening without another chance to come back.

Frank seems to have fully anticipated her struggle, moving in to embrace her again before she's even aware that she's crumbling.

"I got you," he murmurs, over and over. "I got you, Karen. I got you."

"It's—" she swipes at her eyes, blowing out a frustrated breath that seems to shake through her entire body. "It _was_ , um. It was complicated, with my dad."

"I get that," Frank says simply. He reaches up to thumb the tears from her cheek, and her eyes flutter shut for a moment, his palm sliding down to the curve of her throat before dropping away. "You could tell me about it sometime."

"Yeah, I'd like that," she tells him. "I'd like that a lot, actually."

He laces their fingers back together. She leads this time, taking him back toward the way out of this place, back toward Route 296, and for the first time she lets herself wonder – lets herself hope – that there could be an after for her too.

"Wait, is that yours?" Karen asks as she spots the red Honda minivan parked behind Ellison's car. "Is it an upgrade from your murder van?"

"Friend lent it to me," says Frank, in an utterly serious tone.

"So you didn't steal it?" she wonders, still just the slightest bit dubious.

The smirk that Frank gives her is soft, almost playful. "No, ma'am, I didn't steal it."

"You'll have to tell me about this friend of yours sometime," says Karen with a sidelong glance, and he looks away with a full-forming smile this time.

"Funny story," he tells her. "You might've been the one to introduce us."

She tilts her head, considering, and decides he won't have a choice but to tell her more later.

They end up veering left past their cars, up a small knoll and into the trees. There's a bench up ahead, partially hidden away, and they settle down there, still joined at the hand. She hasn't known peace like this with Frank before – the kind that doesn't need to start with a war – and maybe it's selfish but she's in no hurry to let any of this go.

"Nelson said he was coming," Frank mentions after a while. He speaks carefully, like he's been waiting for this, and still isn't sure it's the right way to say it. "I'm betting that Murdock'll be showing up with him."

"Okay," says Karen.

He pauses, then adds, "If you want, I can, uh. Stay with you until they're here, or—" he swallows and rocks forward a little, gaze shifting over the ground, "—longer. If that's what you want."

She reaches with her free hand, holding his in both of hers now. It's softer than she would have expected, smooth-skinned and warm, everything is so warm when he looks up at her again. "I choose longer, Frank."

"Okay," he says, voice rasping slightly.

He's angling closer, and she leans into him with a sigh, resting her head against his shoulder. His other hand comes around to brush back her hair, and then he's kissing her forehead as she closes her eyes, and breathes.


End file.
